Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy Seven

Saturday 29th June

Another really wet day in Sydney, sure hope this rain stops soon. Ground seems to be saturated more and more, not good for the event in under 8 weeks time.

Kate and I spent much of the day a tthe furniture stores in Artarmon home centre place. We did manage to by a sofa, a TV unit and a side table for our lounge. It will all be delivered around the time we move in. They look like this (all images copyright of freedom furniture). In the evening we had a skype call to UK.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy Six

Friday 28th June

Drove into work this morning which took ages, so much rain is forever causing accidents everywhere so slows down the traffic yet more. Drove in as we are going to the football at the SCG later.

During the day carried on booking in the last of the suppliers.

At 6pm there was a celebration party in the office to farewell the OIYP programme (the international youth program). Left there at about 7 to meet Kate at Central so we could go over to the SCG to watch the Swans play Carlton. It rained all the time and to one point lots!

Walked back to Surry Hills after the game with the Andrews, Michael and Caroline and had a quick drink at the Tipple bar before grabbing the car from the office at midnight and driving home. Got to bed at about 1am.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy Five

Thursday 27th June

Caught the train to work after Kate dropped me to the station due to the rain.

Busy day chasing up suppliers and accepting deliveries.

Caught the train home and Kate picked me up. Surprised her by securing tickets to the Swans game tomorrow at the SCG, lets hope its not raining.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy Four

Wednesday 26th June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy Three

Tuesday 25th June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy Two

Monday 24th June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy One

Sunday 23rd June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy

Saturday 22nd June

Welcome to the weekend, today we got up and had a fairly intense property hunting day. First off Kate and I went to visit a place in Lane Cove and then headed home as it wasn't right for us. 

We then went out again and took Bill and Carol with us this time, a strategic move as we wanted them to view a property we had bid on earlier. Before we got there we visited one other place in Lane Cove which looked like it had not been decorated since the 60s or 70s. 

Anyway we arrived at Murray St and sent Bill and Carol in to ask lots of questions and get their opinion on the place. they came out and we had a quick discussion before we went back in for our third viewing. The agent was pleased to see us as we had dropped out of this place two weeks ago after we had a bid of $467K on the table but saw another property we bid on later at $519K and missed out on.

There were many people viewing Murray St today as a result of lack of property coming into the pipeline so demand is up.

We decided there and then to offer on it again once we got home. A call the to the agent and we settled on an offer of $455K with condition vendor took it off the market this weekend and we signed the contract.

To speed things along we went to the agents office and signed a copy of contract anyway and paid a 0.25percent deposit.

We headed home and waited. The agent struggled to get hold of the vendor for same time, about 2 hours later we finally got call to say property was ours. We are now well on the way to owning our own little piece of real estate in Sydney.

We called the UK to to tell them the news and they were happy to hear our news. It also means they have somewhere to stay when they come over for Christmas.

We got some takeaway in to celebrate in the evening. 

I'll be installing a new kitchen!

We are top floor on right

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Nine

Friday 21st June

A busy day at work, we have made a final decision to move our Checkpoint 2 location back to site we had it in 2012, the broken bridge is not going to be fixed and temporary solutions are no longer viable. Spent much time redrawing maps etc.

Came home and Kate and I headed out for some dinner. We were going to try Rubinos a new place at the end of the street, however it was empty apart form four people so didn't appeal. I don't give them long as a business.

We went to the Bridgeview Hotel on Willoughby Road which was OK but nothing spectacular.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Eight

Thursday 20th June

Spent some time doing prep work for a decision we make tomorrow regarding changing a checkpoint location. Looks like it will happen so need to start planning changes.

A night at home.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Seven

Wednesday 19th June

More time at work catching up after Brisbane event. Really throwing myself into Sydney work now with just over nine weeks to go.

Really getting cold and rainy in Sydney now, winter is most certainly here and waking up cold in the mornings.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Six

Tuesday 18th June

Another normal day in the office so not much to report for the blog. Nice to get back to a routine at home with dinner round the table in the evening!

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Five

Monday 17th June

Back to work in Sydney. Walked to the station this morning. Spent all day catching up on emails after almost a week out of the office.

Not a great deal more to report today.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Four

Sunday 16th June

Got up and packed up all my stuff and checked out of hotel. Made my way to the ECC and helped pack up the event  form there. We all then went back to storage unit and unpacked vans etc. many hands made light work. 

The afternoon was spent in the pub before we made our way back to the airport, returned the hire car and then flew home to Sydney.

Kate picked me up and it was great to see her after almost a week apart..

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Three

Saturday 15th June

I spent the morning roaming around the event, wit was an excellent opportunity to see what has been achieved with the Brissie event, it goes form strength to strength after my tenure. 

One of the key volunteers Sam were heading up Mt Nebo Rd to bump out CP4 when we came across a single vehicle accident off the side of  the road. A man had lost control and gone off the side of the road, hit a tree and ended up on the roof (well upside down in his convertible) and we were second on scene, another driver saw it happen.

We ended up doing traffic control on a very dodgy road as we both had event radios so could talk to one another.

The driver was very lucky with only minor injuries, we could easily have been dealing with a fatality.

We finally bumped out CP4 late, and then after a visit to the Finish later on I went for a quick dinner at the Regatta Hotel.

Another fairly early night.

There is a crumpled car down there somewhere

 

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Two

Friday 14th June

Alarm went off at 2.25am and it was up and out to support TW Brisbane 2013. My role today was to assist with Registration and the bus operation which I created 2.5 years ago, it's critical this element of the event goes ahead without a hitch or rest of event will be behind. All went very smoothly, with many lessons of previous yea being learnt and implemented to good effect.

Once Rego was done I spent the day assisting at Checkpoint 6 build. Once that was all done late afternoon I headed home to the hotel and crashed at about 9pm.

In the midst of everything today we also submitted a sealed bid on a property on Mowbray Rd of $519K, alas we were unsuccesful having been beaten by a higher bid of $535K. Thanks got to Kate who did all the running around in Sydney whilst I was away in Brisbane.

Some pictures...of Rego and then CP6

Alarms to get up!

Rego

CP6

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty One

Thursday 13th June

Spent all day building the event control centre control room, the nerve centre of the event. All went smoothly and headed back to hotel at about 6pm, but before that had to go to the finish site to secure for tomorrow to ensure no one parked in area resulting in delays in site bump in tomorrow.

Grabbed a quick bit of food before going to bed early due to getting up in only a few hours time.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty

Wednesday 12th June

Spent the day finishing off water stations at Checkpoint 1 and 4, much driving about in the bush in 4WDs. Got everything set to go so one of big event risks is resolved.

Dinner in Toowong in the evening.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Nine

Tuesday 11th June

Up early and Kate dropped to me to Artarmon station at 6.40am so I could get train to airport. More fog so a slight delay on my departure to Brisbane. Caught a taxi to the office from the airport which is quicker than the train.

On arrival I basically ended up heading out into the bush to start setting up water stations, took quite along time and Sam (volunteer I was with) ended up running late and finishing CP4 in the dark. 

Weird things happen in the bush at night and we saw unexplained lights in the bush, we could not explain it and did not hang about, perhaps these....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Min_light

Here are some pics of our activities today

 

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Eight

Monday 10th June

A nice day off to celebrate the Queens birthday, had a relaxing day spending time with Kate before I disappear off to QLD for almost a week for their event.

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Seven

Sunday 9th June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Six

Saturday 8th June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Five

Friday 7th June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Four

Thursday 6th June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Three

Wednesday 5th June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Two

Tuesday 4th June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty One

Monday 3rd June

Day One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty

Sunday 2nd June

Absolutely horrible weather day in Sydney today, wet and windy all day. We chose to stay inside apart form a trip to the supermarket. We chilled out catching up on TV, washing, and general housework.

Kate is happy as Masterchef starts on the telly again tonight, that's her lost in the evenings for 3 months...its must also mean its TW time again.